New Ranged Class: Demolitionist (Cannons, Rifles, Guns, Explosives!)

'Mortaaar combat!'

The Demolitionist

The demolitionist is a class inspired by WarCraft 2's Dwarven Demo Squads, WarCraft 3's Mortar Teams, certain Demon Hunter skills from Diablo 3, the engineering profession of WoW, and lastly the need for some interesting ranged fighting in WoW. This is the perfect class if you like Gnomes, Goblins, Dwarves, and explosives!

Class ResourceFOCUS (Grey colour)
Focus is spent whenever you use any of your skills and abilities as a Demolitionist. The way it works is one of the following (yet to be decided): A) You may always use your skills, but with little Focus they will make little damage etc., or B) your skills use up Focus just like other classes skills use up their resources, and you can't use your skills if you have too little. Both of these would be fine by my book, but the first one is a bit more original and could create some interesting situations.

Weapon Types (Equipped items)
Rifles
Guns
Cannons
Ignition Kits

Armour Types
Leather
Mail

Available RacesDwarf
Gnome
Human
WorgenGoblin
Orc
Troll
Undead

SPEC 1: Artillery

This long range, AOE specialization allows you to support your friends from a distance, while wreaking thundering havoc on your enemies. Uniquely, it requires two players to function - align yourself with another artillery specced demolitionist in your party by right clicking her portrait and selecting 'Form Mortar Team'. Once she has accepted, the two of you are linked on the battlefield as a Mortar Team. To use your artillery abilities, you must stand within 10 yards of each other. (Icons on the mini-map and above your heads will let you keep track of each other's whereabouts.) A Mortar Team consists of a gunner and a runner. The player who invited the other to the team will automatically become the gunner, but may swap roles with the runner with a 20 second cooldown. This radical play-style is limited in the sense that you depend on someone else to do it, but it is beneficial because it has very strong and long range attacks, and can be a blast for two friends who want to play strategically with each other - each performing their own, vital tasks.

RUNNER
The runner begins by placing a cannon, mortar, or turret on the ground. This is controlled from a little skill bar - like the one used for some other classes to determine their shape-shift forms / stances / aspects, etc. For instance, if the 'Cannon Mode' is active, a cannon will appear right in front of the runner, and is pushed around when the she moves. They move as one body, so there is no delay or problems with sharp turns and bends around walls, etc. The main thing for the runner to do is to determine when to swap the artillery mode, and how to move skilfully through the battlefield to position her and her gunner out of harms way and within firing distance of targets.

GUNNER
The gunner is obviously the one manning the artillery piece. During battle, she won't have to focus on moving - that's the runner's job. Instead what the gunner does is use the skills and abilities available to the artillery specced demolitionists and attack the enemies. Some skills require the cannon mode, others the mortar, and some the turret. The turret is the most basic of the three, and is unlocked early on in the talent specc. The cannon comes next, and finally the mortar. They each have a unique play style and purpose on the battlefield. Think of the runner and its artillery piece as a mount, and the gunner as the rider atop the mount.

Example Skills

Bombard
Launch a volley of cannon fire at your target, dealing damage to a wide area.

Thundershot
Fire an electric projectile which hovers above your target, raining down lightning death upon it.

Sanctified Barrage
Launch a volley of small cannon balls which heal friends and deal damage to enemies they hit.

Titan's Fury
Fire the enormous Titan projectiles at your enemy, interrupting and stunning it for three seconds independent of size.

SPEC 2: Rifling

This specc will take over a little bit from the Hunters. Ideally, I'd like to see hunter abilities emphasize bows even more, while rifles are left to the demolitionists. As a rifleman, you use two-handed rifles and one-handed guns to stalk your enemies. It is indeed similar to how the hunter works, but with a slightly shorter range and more focus on exploding projectiles.

Both rifles and guns utilize scopes as enhancements, but require no ammo. It is simply assumed that you have ammo. Scopes can increase your range, damage, or CC and AOE capabilities - depending on which ones you use. You can't have it all.

RIFLES
Akin to hunters, these weapons allow you to shoot powerful projectiles at a rather long distance. It is great if you enjoy the classic ranged DPS role, but would like it to be more steampunk-y. You can make your own rifles as an engineer, or loot them in the game.

GUNS
The handguns would be one-handed weapons that let you fire small projectiles rapidly. Hand-gun-oriented skills have a shorter range and less fire-power than rifle skills, but will be incredibly effective if you react quickly to your surroundings and know your skills well.

Example Skills

Snipe
This precision shot lets you take a steady aim with your rifle and deal a large amount of damage to a single target. Long cooldown.

Silver Bullets
This passive ability lets you deal more damage against the undead and demons.

Shrapnel Shot
A shot for both hand-guns and rifles which cause bleeding in enemies. No cooldown, so can be used efficiently on many targets.

Steam Grenade
Fires a grenade from your rifle which creates an expanding steam cloud upon collision. Prevents enemies from using ranged skills and makes it difficult for them to see.

The final specialization available to Demolitionists is the explosives. Like the name suggests, this is all about living out your goblin or gnomish dreams and blow things up. Using dynamite, bombs, grenades, and land mines, you fight your enemies at a short distance. Often, you will prepare before a battle by placing land mines, and sometimes you will end up kiting your enemies by chugging your grenades and bombs behind you. Used in combination, the two will prove very effective.

As for your equipped weapon (physical item), you will carry Ignition Kits for stat points and other bonuses. You won't actually fight with them, however, as every skill at your disposal will play out an animation where you chug or place your explosive of choice.

GRENADES
The grenades at your disposal focus mainly on CC DPS, and have a slightly longer range than your other devices due to their lighter weight and nimbleness.

BOMBS & DYNAMITE
Your bombs and dynamite are your primary source of raw DPS, but have a short range due to their weight. They tend to go off in big blasts that deal AOE damage, but can be altered with glyphs to focus more on single target DPS.

LAND MINES
Perhaps the most strategic weapon at your disposal, and also the most difficult to master, the land mine is what you can place before or during a battle and hope your enemies stumble into. Some are invisible; some are visible but are difficult to destroy; some are based on timers. Whichever the case, be sure that you can cause your enemies a lot of harm and frustration with these.

Example Skills

Hammer Mine
A hefty mine which dazes enemies for 5 seconds, before stunning them for 1 additional second.

Arctic Frost Grenade
A grenade which freezes enemies within 3 yards of detonation for 1 second. Has a very short cooldown, allowing for repeated throws.

The Black Widow
An invisible mine which, once trod on, creates a highly toxic cloud for 15 yards. The longer the enemy stays within the cloud, the faster it will take damage over time.

Cluster Bomb
A bomb which causes damage within 5 yards upon detonation, and also creates many smaller bombs which in turn create even smaller bombs. A total of roughly 20 bombs of varying size exploding one after another.

The Big One
A large bomb which, once thrown, detonates after a five second timer. Any player caught in its 10 yard blast will lose 60% of their health.

EXAMPLE GLYPHS

Just to give you a taste of what could be, I'm including these few glyph ideas.

Sticky Grenades
Any grenade you throw can now stick to surfaces, allowing you to place them in some very strategic places.

It's an idea I haven't seen yet expressed as a "new class post" idea, but the 2-player part of it is going to be highly problematic.

Also, "aoe/CC" is not a spec, nor is "long ranged." This really doesn't fit across the board.

Would work great for Diablo, but not Warcraft. I'm having a hard time envisioning why you'd ever bring one to a raid.

Flavor and style seems nice, though. Needs to conform to WoW class design, however, to have a hope of working.

Thanks for your input!

First of all, I realise the 2-man thing is a bit radical. I believe it could work, and the only reason you don't think it could is because WoW seldom takes risks or does anything to change its formula. This can be good and bad, but I do think it's the reason why it feels like a radical design. There are many other MMOs I can think of that I could see trying something like it without a doubt.

Second, the AOE / CC (etc.) were merely further descriptions, or keywords if you will, of the speccs. The names are seen to the left of that, and are Artillery / Rifling / Explosives. Makes sense now?

As for bringing one to a raid, I guess that really comes down to how you'd tweak the mechanics and skills to make it useful to a raid. In theory, the same could be asked about any class in WoW. But because of what they can bring, they make sense. Similarly, a heavy DPS unit which is often out of harm's way could prove efficient in many boss fights, I believe.

---------- Post added 2013-05-22 at 10:26 PM ----------

This community confuses me. They can discuss and praise beaten-to-death ideas like Dark Rangers and Ogres over and over, but when I spend hours on putting an original concept together, people don't even bother - and the ones who do just vote it down without comment?

I've read all of it and honestly, I think the only thing that could be used from this idea would be to add the Runner to a support spec, which I think it would fit nicely in my Tinker concept =) -just saying-

Gotta say some of the ideas are interesting but like a poster above me said I don't feel like there is enough depth for it to be a stand-alone class, maybe a new spec for hunters?

As for why the 2 player idea won't turn out well is simply because you are limiting an entire spec to the hope that you will find another player in that spec. As an example, I queue for a random bg and I want to play my cannon spec, but what's this? I'm the only demolitionist in the bg? Guess I have to afk and wait 30 minutes to play again.

It effectively makes that spec useless unless you are messing around in the world with a friend or queueing as a duo for stuff.

"Dear your holiness, your army is safe and sound, they're down here dying for you."
Bayside is a cult.

But then again, I fail to see why a two-person setup would be so impossible. I for one think this game needs more incentive to work with others. People who prefer working alone could either play another class or play another specc.

If anything, I personally think that my idea (while a bit rough around the edges) provides something new and fresh to the game, rather than just the same old stereotypical class ideas we see all the time.

It just doesn't have any sort of...appeal to me. I won't comment on the 2 player thing, though I will say there was a Blizz April Fools that you'd need 2 players the play the new two-headed ogre race, would I totally skip it? Yes. I would like to have fun without having to totally rely on someone else to help me play my class. Second...I don't know. It just doesn't seem very...aesthetically appealing. I just don't know...there's just something about it. Maybe I just wouldn't find a class like this as fun personally, maybe I could see a spec like this but a whole entire class like this seems like quite a stretch and, personally, very boring/redundant. I don't know, maybe it just doesn't feel like a very...unique class? Spell/ability wise as it basically centers around the same bomb after bomb or mine after mine use. Just my 2 cents.